China is isolationist and they seem to be growing.
The problem is the USA is a consumer economy which isn’t sustainable. We could get away with it as a tech leader, but with China stepping ahead (Deepseek) china will be a tech leader and manufacturing leader. What will the USA have?
China is what now? China is the biggest trading partner of something like 70% of all nations in the world!
China is asymmetric and unfair, not "isolated". They disallow imports except in a handful of industries they can't replicate yet. That works for China, because: (1) they are huge, and (2) they remain poor, and thus can do the low wage jobs internally in addition to doing them for the rest of the world.
The US only has advantage #1. Though at this point #2 seems within reach...
We love cheap stuff if the country providing it is weak and not a threat of any kind. Suddenly we don't love good Chinese prices any longer. The massive world wide tariffs are a scheme to restructure the trade order because we have lost control of the WTO, etc to China. We have been so greedy American companies fell over themselves to build factories and joint ventures in China only for China to create competitive companies and force these joint ventures to bankruptcy. Because of the greed, intellectual property and knowledge transfer to China Donald Trump has decided to save the system himself. The stock market being at all time highs doesn't matter if the United States is left empty of capabilities.
China is very far from isolationist. They're making huge investments into other countries with Belt & Road, importing huge amounts of commodities, exporting huge amounts of finished goods. Sure, the domestic market is protected, but it's a long way from North Korean autarky, which seems to be Trump's goal.
The problem is the USA is a consumer economy which isn’t sustainable. We could get away with it as a tech leader, but with China stepping ahead (Deepseek) china will be a tech leader and manufacturing leader. What will the USA have?